THE MASS RE-EMERGING OF THE BEDROOM CODER
This is part two in a series of articles exploring experiments and enablers aiming to improve the creative climate in game development for current and new talents alike. This month, we look at software tools and industry moves which focus on facilitating the independent visionary. [You can read part one here.]
It's tougher than ever to break into video games. Of course there are exceptions, but they are very rare indeed compared to the movie and music businesses.
In movies, some have competed commercially with just a handy camcorder, editing software, and a few friends who can act (remember "Blair Witch" and "Clerks"?). In music, a mic, a keyboard, and some recording software is all that's ever really needed to create a hit.
In games, life got a little more complex for aspiring game creators after the bedroom coder days and thus garage developers almost completely disappeared throughout the late '90s and early '00s, with new ideas coming almost entirely from commercial developers and publishers.
Fortunately, in the last few years, garage developers have been making somewhat of a low-key resurgence. In 2004, The Behemoth brought their Flash-based "Alien Hominid" game to consoles and are now building "Castle Crashers" and an update of "Alien Hominid" for Xbox Live Arcade.
Introversion Software, the guys behind "Darwinia"(winner of several awards at the Independent Games Festival 2006), have seen enough success to carry on making games as a small independent team who admirably won't settle for any "publishers f**king their games up." Their next project is "Subversion" and will be developed " in the full glare of the general gaming public."
Unfortunately, much as the quality of the game design is likely to be high, it's unlikely these games will be huge, commercially competitive titles, bar perhaps "Castle Crashers," thanks to the Xbox Live Arcade service being such a great platform for selling small-budget games.
Part of the reason for this is simply that games are still largely a technology arms race. Innovation is key, but without technology, some ideas just can't come to life. When the technology to realize ambitious new ideas becomes just plain inaccessible to laymen, the ideas pool becomes limited. Equally sad is that concepts coming from capable independent developers are automatically heavily restricted in scope and don't reach further than the elitist gaming audience. It's still a valid audience and one that can bring financial success, but it's an initially limiting one and it can often paint your further efforts as niche and untouchable to shortsighted publishing execs if you ever feel the need to seek a bigger deal.
Fortunately, accessible technologies are becoming more widely available.
Just last month, Torque released its beta release of Torque X -- a GUI game-development environment that non-programmers can use to prototype gameplay concepts.
This wouldn't be big news if not for the fact they're integrating it with Microsoft's XNA platform, which is the backbone of the critically and commercial success that is the previously referenced Xbox Live Arcade.
The engine itself is praised for being great at realising 2-D gameplay concepts and it's definitely a step in the right direction for attracting new talent and ideas, particularly as Microsoft asserts that it wishes XNA to be "A Youtube for games."
Of course, GUI game design software is not a new thing, but integration into something commercial and widely accessible is. Widely praised tools like Virtools and Unity rely on Web-player technology to reach audiences, despite the engines being perfectly capable of outputting current-gen game technology (which they also do, by the way).
The latest version of Virtools, for instance, can output to PC, Mac, Web Browser plugins, PSP, and Xbox. They're also working on a Next-Gen version. Meanwhile, Unity can boast published games on both Mac and PC, as well as Web browsers, while being equipped with the highly regarded AGEIA physics engine.
So how good are these software tools?
Well, both have been used to create low-budget published professional game software, in the entertainment, serious games, and marketing sectors. Games developed in these platforms have been published by UbiSoft, Atari, and Warner Brothers on console, PC, and Web platforms. On top of that, a few years back, I interviewed Greg Tavarres, a technology lead at Sony Japan, and his comment about Virtools was this: "One of our designers convinced management to give him a month to play with it. In that month, he was able to create an entire level for a character action game on his own."
He added that "this designer had his character walking around, he had animals you could hop on and ride, he had three or four kinds of enemies you could interact with, he had non-player characters you could recruit and command to do various things. He had several game setups, cliffs you could climb, moving platforms, all kinds of stuff -- and he had done all of this without any programming experience in a single month."
Call me optimistic, but that sounds mighty promising. With the IGF winners behind "Narbacular Drop" being plucked by Valve to build the much-awaited "Portal Half Life 2" add-on and Xbox Live Arcade shooting to be a YouTube for games with the software tools being placed to make it happen, it looks like it'll be a promising next few years for the aspiring independent creative in the world of commercial video games. Stay tuned.
By now, Wii parables are plentiful among both the gaming community and the mainstream press.
>> Ultimate In Convergence: Casting Actors For Games
There will soon come a day when creating a video game will be not much different than filming a movie. Two current games illustrate the fine line that divides the two processes -- and the actors who were cast for the games, rehearsed for them, and then acted in their "filming" can surely attest to their similarities.
>> COUNTING ON YEAR-END BLOCKBUSTERS
The last three months of the year are make-or-break time for the video games industry -- as they are every year. In 2007, Americans will shell out as much as $18 billion on the interactive entertainment, reports Port Washington, NY-based NPD Group. Approximately half of that spending will occur between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31.
>> Secret Level: Making The Decision To Be Acquired
After seven years as an independent game developer, San Francisco-based Secret Level was acquired by Sega last year.
>> Q&A: I Want My MTV Video Games
To much of America over a certain age, MTV -- which stood for “Music TV” when it launched in 1981 -- is that cable channel that shows an endless stream of rock videos. Mika Salmi wouldn’t be surprised if that same demographic has no idea that MTV is heavily into video games these days. And will rely much more heavily on gaming these next few years.
>> DAY TWO: TRYING TO DO THE HOMEBREW DEVELOPER THING
Presumably, you've already read Part One in this multi-part series of articles about trying to make a demo of a bowling game, as a one-man show, at home, using one of the three big homebrew game dev tools available today -- Virtools, Unity 3D, and Torque Engine Builder. Here comes Part Two ...
>> Casual Games: Too Much Of A Good Thing?
From a developer’s point of view, casual games are the place to be. They’re relatively quick and cheap to create, simple to distribute, and the easy-to-learn video games appeal to such a huge mass audience that the more that can be made, the merrier.
>> Xfire: Building Community For PC Gamers
Chris Kirmse is the VP of engineering at Menlo Park, CA-based Xfire, the MTV Networks-owned company that is bringing gamers closer through their dedicated applications.
>> Day One: Trying To Do
The Homebrew Developer Thing
What you are about to read is the first in a series of articles about trying to make a game demo, as a one-man show, at home, using one of the three big homebrew game dev tools available today -- Virtools, Unity 3D, and Torque Engine Builder.
>> TIMEPLAY: BRINGING GAMES TO THE SILVER SCREEN
Jon Hussman, president and CEO of Toronto and Los Angeles-based Timeplay Entertainment, launched the company after being involved with Playdium Entertainment, a huge, 40,000-sq.-ft. entertainment center in Ontario, jam-packed with arcade games, batting cages, mini-golf, a go-kart track, and more. It was the ultimate destination center for gamers, but the capital costs were just as huge. Here he takes a few minutes to chat with DAM about Timeplay’s unique interactive gaming platform.
>> WOO'S LATEST ACTION: TURNING FILM INTO GAME
Talk about convergence. When "John Woo Presents Stranglehold" leaped onto video game shelves at the end of August, it was the first time a full-length movie was packaged with a game on the same disc.
>> MORE SUPPORT FOR THE GARAGE DEVELOPER
These last few months, further developments have taken place in support of aspiring and capable developers, indie or otherwise.
Recently, at E3, Sony announced a deal with Epic whereby PC owners of “Unreal Tournament 3” could build a game level, then share it with PlayStation 3 users around the globe. Specifically, they would use the Unreal 3 editor and build the level as developers using the engine are doing, then simply share the level by way of digital transfer or hosting Web site.
>> DAM Q&A With Gaia Online’s Craig Sherman
Craig Sherman, the CEO of Gaia Online, joined “the fastest-growing online hangout for teens” in May 2006 after sizing up 250 companies, looking for one that met his two criteria.
>> A Place For Indie Developers To Kongregate
As George Carlin used to say, everybody needs a place for their stuff.
But finding a place for game developers’ “stuff,” somewhere where they can show off their wares, get a little exposure -- and perhaps some cash to boot -- hasn’t always been so easy.
>> Nielsen Turns To TV Viewers To Report On Video Games
They say the third time is the charm and Nielsen Games is hoping that’s true. On July 25, the research company was scheduled to start providing a metric to measure the effectiveness of in-game advertising. But this isn’t its first attempt.
>> Top 10 Misconceptions About Video Game PR
Public relations might be one of the most misunderstood professions in the interactive entertainment industry. Many publishers do not know they need it, while some think they need it for all the wrong reasons.
>> Boomers Are Gamers, Too!
When the news broke that playing video games helps keep senior citizens' minds alert and crackling, it was a big day for game-loving boomers. And an even bigger day for marketers of the so-called "brain games."
>> Hollywood & Games Or Art VS. Money?
Horror pioneer Clive Barker opened this year’s recent “Hollywood & Games” conference by sharing with an intimate crowd of games and movie professionals his personal experiences and understanding of games as a medium.
>> Hooray For Hollywood And Games!
The Hollywood And Games Summit held last year at the Beverly Hills Hotel, was the video games industry’s
first real attempt to publicly break down the language barrier between movie makers and game makers. The “first annual event” was one day long and deemed a good first try by many in attendance.
>> Picking Casual Gaming’s Top Model
It’s called the “99% problem” by those in the casual games business and, like something out of a Sherlock Holmes novel, the search is on for the “99% solution.”
>> DAM Q&A With Insomniac Games’ Mike Acton
Mike Acton is the engine director at Burbank, CA-based Insomniac Games, where he works with a crack team of engine programmers defining the next-generation of PS3 technology.
>> Standby For Episodic Casual Gaming
Like the episodic cliffhangers of the silver screen, the health and welfare of episodic gaming seems to be in constant danger.
>> Getting Past That Old MMOG Grind
It's called grinding. Or farming. To players of massive multiplayer online games, it means killing the same monster over and over and over in order to earn experience points.
>> Video Game Art Is Increasingly "To Go"
There had never been an "outsource manager" at Foundation 9, the video game industry's largest independent developer; never been a reason for one.
>> Q&A: Introversion: Still In Possession Of Its I.P.
This is part three in a series of articles about how people are improving the creative climate in the business, be it for themselves or for others by example.
>>Dialogue With Richard "Lord British" Garriott On The Holy Grail Of MMOS
Garriott predicts that the next-generation of MMOG will have the same excitement as solo games.
>> Dialogue With Mike Wilson: The Gamecock Crows
As a publisher, Wilson believes it's his role to fund the developer, then get out of the spotlight.
>>Now We’re In That City By The Bay!
DAM is expanding into the San Francisco area to better servce its clients and candidates in N. California.
>> Burger King Has It Their Way With Advergame Sales
Burger King sold more than 3.2 million copies of its three advergames in the last three months.
>> The Mass Re-Emerging Of The Bedroom Coder
In the last few years,garage developers have been making somewhat of a low-key resurgence.
>> Wii Ambitions At Buena Vista Games
Disney's Buena Vista Games named Scott Novis VP and general manager of its new Fall Line studio.
>> Rob Pardo On The WoW Factor
As Blizzard's VP of game design, Rob Pardo is the man ultimately responsible for making "World of Warcraft" happen.
>> Brainstorming At A Video Game "Think Tank"
Developers gathered to identify workable solutions for what stops effective game design from happening.
>> Video Games That Watch Back
New techniques allow developers to watch gamers who are playing online.
